Goalkeepers and penalties

A while back I did some statistics on free kicks, penalties etc - and one area I looked into was keepers saving penalties. Cool is supposed to be the SQ for saving penalties so the first port of call is checking where the keeper has the cool SQ and comparing that to keepers without cool.


The following table shows penalties against keepers with and without the cool SQ (those without can have any other SQs). The first column is the difference in performance (not skill) of the player taking the penalty and the keeper. The bottom 2 lines are total for all penalties and total for situations where the keeper and penalty taker seem to be of similar skill (the greyed area)

	Cool Keeper			No Cool
Perf Diff	Scored	Missed		Scored	Missed
-10	0	0	0%	1	2	33%
-9	0	0	0%	1	1	50%
-8	0	1	0%	0	0	0%
-7	1	0	100%	2	8	20%
-6	0	0	0%	2	6	25%
-5	1	0	100%	8	7	53%
-4	1	1	50%	5	5	50%
-3	2	2	50%	9	10	47%
-2	2	1	67%	16	10	62%
-1	2	1	67%	24	9	73%
0	3	2	60%	34	6	85%
1	2	1	67%	45	4	92%
2	6	0	100%	56	13	81%
3	10	0	100%	53	12	82%
4	6	0	100%	54	4	93%
5	5	0	100%	55	1	98%
6	2	0	100%	48	1	98%
7	2	0	100%	56	2	97%
8	5	0	100%	39	0	100%
9	2	1	67%	22	0	100%
10	2	1	67%	15	0	100%
Total	54	11	83%	545	101	84%
Tot -3 to +4	33	7	82%	291	68	81%

Overall there are 65 penalties against keepers with cool , and 83% are scored. 646 against other keepers - and 84% score. The situation is similar for the players of similar skill - and the conclusion is cool doesn't seem to do anything to help keepers save penalties. 

I then checked other SQs and most of them (king of the air, breakaways, intelligent) looked similar to above. The other 2 SQs seemed very different - see the following table. The left hand side is for reflex SQ, right hand side for Positioning SQ.

	Reflex SQ			Position SQ
Perf Diff	Scored	Missed		Scored	Missed
-10	0	0	0	0	0	0
-9	0	0	0	0	0	0
-8	0	0	0	0	0	0
-7	0	0	0	1	0	50
-6	0	2	0	0	1	0
-5	1	0	50	2	1	50
-4	1	0	50	1	0	50
-3	1	3	20	1	0	50
-2	3	2	50	5	0	83
-1	3	1	60	5	0	83
0	2	0	66	5	1	71
1	2	1	50	10	0	90
2	5	1	71	10	0	90
3	7	4	58	12	1	85
4	6	1	75	15	2	83
5	9	0	90	4	0	80
6	2	0	66	8	0	88
7	12	0	92	6	1	75
8	7	0	87	7	0	87
9	4	0	80	3	0	75
10	3	0	75	2	0	66
Total	68	15	82%	97	7	93%
Tot -3 to +4	29	13	69%	63	4	94%

The overall result for reflexes seems skewed because there are a lot of penalties by relatively high skilled kickers but looking at players of similar skill only 69% are scored - compared to a typical 83%. SQs often work as opposites so positioning has the opposite bonuses and penalties to reflexes and that us very apparent in this table. Keepers with positioning almost never save penalties. 

Sample size & conclusion

I think a sample of around 700 penalties overall is reasonable to show the conversion rate is around 84%. For specific SQs the sample sizes are small but I would say in all instances they are probably adequate enough to show what is actually happening. I had planned to collect more data but - never happened.

It seems very much like the cool SQ does nothing to help saving penalties and that reflexes is the SQ to have in this situation - and positioning is the kiss of death. The fact that positioning has the opposite effect is logical from how X11 SQs work but does beg the question why are the rules wrong?

How useful is COOL for penalties?

I recently analysed 5,000 games to see how how much various SQs helped with scoring goals - here's a taster.

The following table shows number of penalties that were taken by a player with the cool SQ, and those taken by other players. Additionally I listed them according to the relative performance rating of the player taking the PK and the keeper.

	COOL Scorer			Not COOL
Perf Diff	Scored	Missed	% scored	Scored	Missed	% scored
-10	0	2	0%	1	0	100%
-9	0	0	0%	1	1	50%
-8	0	0	0%	0	1	0%
-7	2	2	50%	1	6	14%
-6	1	1	50%	1	5	17%
-5	4	2	67%	5	5	50%
-4	4	0	100%	2	6	25%
-3	6	0	100%	5	12	29%
-2	8	0	100%	10	11	48%
-1	15	1	94%	11	9	55%
0	22	1	96%	15	7	68%
1	22	0	100%	25	5	83%
2	33	1	97%	29	12	71%
3	31	1	97%	32	11	74%
4	23	0	100%	37	4	90%
5	22	0	100%	38	1	97%
6	15	0	100%	35	1	97%
7	16	0	100%	42	2	95%
8	16	0	100%	28	0	100%
9	6	0	100%	18	1	95%
10	10	0	100%	7	1	87%
Total	256	11	96%	343	101	77%
Total +-3 Prf	137	4	97%	127	67	65%

The 2 total figures show the total of all penalties and the total of the grey area, +- 3 bars in performance, ie similar skill players.

As you can see when the PKer and the GK have similar skills a player with cool is virtually guaranteed to score, but similar players without cool only score 2/3. In fact it looks like you should choose a cool player even 7 or 8 bars weaker than another player as he is more likely to score.

I did check things from the other side - so keepers with COOL SQ. There were only 65 penalties against cool keepers in the sample data and on the whole it looked like it did actually NOTHING. More data is needed.

SQs in more detail

There is some conflicting information as to how SQs work in X11. According to Iwe (original Xpert Eleven designer) the "outfield" SQs (heading, quick, Goal Instincts and Shooting Power) work by making players more specialised, but not better overall. That is to say that a player who has heading will get a bonus to heading activities but a penalty to activities requiring speed. Quick players will get a  penalty to heading chances. Goal Instincts and Shooting Power work similarly, with skill in one area educing ability in the other.

There are 2 aspects to the effect - a player with a special quality will have an improved conversion rate for that kind of chance but also those types of chances will fall to that player more often.

This first graph was based on analysis of thousands of matches and shows the affect of heading on a player's conversion rate.

This graph shows chance distribution for players with the heading SQs

These graphs were originally posted on a website by an X11 player called Terjekv. The affect of SQs seems to correspond to about 3 extra skill levels but probably the most significant factor is chance distribution. The players who are better at heading get significantly more heading opportunities and less through play opportunities and vice versa.

The big question comes when a player had both opposing SQs, and the analysis seems to suggest there are only benefits and no negatives applied.

The value of hidden SQs

The XpertEleven rules cover special qualities here, but only in a superficial way. in this post I'm going to cover the hidden SQs in more detail.

 

Fragile is often seen as one of the worst SQs, but this is not the case. The fragile SQ increases the risk and duration of injuries to the specific player, but it does not increase the chance for a team to get an injury as a whole. It acts more like a magnet for increasing the chance of injury to the player with the SQ. From that perspective it reduces the chance of injury to other players in the team so getting 2-3 of your lesser players with this SQ will help protect those who don't have it. 

Cheat is often a misunderstood SQ. There is a slight negative in that these players will pick up a few extra cards than the normal player. The upsides are many. You will generally play the cheat option in X11 around 50% of the time and when that happens cheating players will get a small advantage. This is especially helpful if you have a player with cheat as your playmaker or a a forward. 

In many people's opinion tough is the worst SQ. Tough is about aggressive play and in no way the opposite to fragile. The upside is a slight bonus to performance when playing bruise. The downsides are a performance reduction when playing careful plus a significant increase to bookings. I find this to be a special nightmare SQ for keepers when playing careful.

On the whole managers probably play careful more often than bruise, but with the recent reduction in long term injuries bruise might start to figure more often and this SQ could become less of a problem.

Diva can be a great SQ. To get the best out of a diva they will need their squad number - but you gain a slight performance boost if you do this. Certainly if you have good teamwork on divas you will be pleased with their match ratings. 

Teamwork was changed to be more significant a year or two back and now a diva needs to have good or excellent teamwork at a minimum. As their teamwork doesn't change much over time then this can be a kind of anchor helping other players converge. 

Hart trainer is undoubtedly the king of SQs. There is plenty known and written about this SQ already. it helps players to maintain form, arguably they need less training sessions. it usually adds significantly to the cost of players, especially youths. over a player's career it's not unusual for a hard trainer to gain 1-2 skillbars more than players without this SQ.

Probably the biggest benefit of a hard trainer is the ability to recover form after a change report. The benefit of this SQ does depend on the league and how many games are being played and it is certainly more useful in leagues with 2 or 3 games a week than 1. The removal of overtraining has probably taken a little shine off this SQ.

Greedy is a highly prized and quite rare SQ. The general idea is players perform better when larger win bonuses are offered. It's a simple to understand SQ but rarely seems to produce the performance boost one might expect. Within the context of developing teams and those not challenging for big trophies this is very much an overrated SQ.